In this fourth book in the series, Captain Jack Aubrey is ashore on half pay without a command—until Stephen Maturin arrives with secret orders for Aubrey to take a frigate to the Cape of Good Hope under a commodore's pennant, there to mount an expedition against the French-held islands of Mauritius and Réunion. But the difficulties of his orders are compounded by two of his own captains—Lord Clonfert, a pleasure-seeking dilettante, and Captain Corbett, whose severity pushes his crew to the verge of mutiny. Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and ship's surgeon (and British spy) Dr. Stephen Maturin have been described as "better than Holmes and Watson, the equal of Quixote and Panza" (Los Angeles Times). Set in the time of Lord Nelson's Navy, their chronicles are at once stirring adventure tales, detailed historical fiction, and action thrillers par excellence.

"Patrick O'Brian presents the lost arcana of that hard-pressed, cruel, courageous world with an immediacy that makes its workings both comprehensible and fascinating. But in the end it is the serious exploration of human character that gives the books their greatest power: the fretful play of mood that can irrationally darken the edges of the brightest triumph, and that can feed a trickle of merriment into the midst of terror and tragedy."—NYTBR